Microsoft is not backing down from getting ISO approval for its Open XML document format.

GENEVA, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp ramped up
its fight to have its Office Open XML document format made into
an international standard on Monday as delegates from 37
countries met to reconsider the proposal.

Their meeting hosted by the International Organisation for
Standardisation (ISO) and International Electrotechnical
Commission (IEC) in Geneva is meant to help broker consensus
after a preliminary vote on the standard failed six months ago.

There will be no ballot during the week-long talks, but the
87 national standards bodies who previously voted will have
until March 29 to adjust their positions, giving the world's
largest software maker another shot at the two-thirds majority
it needs for approval.

"The ISO/IEC members who voted on the draft in September
will have 30 days to change their votes if they wish," said
Roger Frost, a spokesman for the Geneva-based agency.

Microsoft won only 53 percent support in September.

Standardisation of Open XML, which is the default
file-saving format in Microsoft Office 2007, would allow other
companies to build products using the file format and simplify
file exchange between different software suites.

Opponents of the proposed ISO/IEC standard DIS 29500 argue
there is no need for a rival to the widely used Open Document
Format (ODF) that is already an international standard.

They say that the Microsoft product's 6,000 pages of code,
compared with ODF's 860 pages, make it artificially complicated
and untranslatable. The productivity software suite OpenOffice
uses ODF, which is supported by International Business Machines
Corp. (IBM) and Sun Microsystems Inc..

"Microsoft could easily provide full support for ODF," said
Rishab Ghosh, senior researcher at the United Nations University
in Maastricht.

Ghosh said Microsoft's drive for a competing standard was
part of its broader strategy to encourage consumers to use only
Microsoft products, as has been alleged in anti-trust cases in
Europe and elsewhere.

"Because their software is used by so many people, you don't
switch to anyone else's software because you are worried that
your files are going to be lost," he told Reuters by telephone.

"If you can save by default in ODF using a Microsoft
product, that means your documents will be easily readable by
users of a competing software. And when your documents are
easily readable by others, maybe you can consider switching to a
different software," he said.

Microsoft says multiple standards are normal in software and
other industries, that competition makes for better products,
and that its format has higher specifications and is more useful
than ODF.

The company has collaborated with Novell to develop
a tool to translate Open XML documents into ODF and vice versa,
though critics believe the tool cannot provide a complete
translation due to the complexity of the Microsoft product.

XML, short for Extensible Markup Language, is a standard for
describing data in a way that allows it to be shared across
various systems and applications. Microsoft has handed over
control of Open XML to the standards-making body Ecma, which
would make it available even in the event of its demise.

Delegates submitted about 4,200 suggested modifications to
the Microsoft documents in the lead-up to last year's ballot.
Those have been whittled down to 1,100 comments for
consideration during this week's meeting, the ISO said.
(Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Jason Neely)